


A Thousand-Petaled Flower

by thealphagate_archivist



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Adult Content, Angst, Dark, Drama, First Time, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-06-21
Updated: 2006-06-21
Packaged: 2019-02-02 19:03:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12732414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thealphagate_archivist/pseuds/thealphagate_archivist
Summary: Jack and Daniel are captured and tortured by Bast, and must find themselves in each other to survive.





	A Thousand-Petaled Flower

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the archivists: this story was originally archived at [The Alpha Gate](https://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Alpha_Gate), a Stargate SG-1 archive, which began migration to the AO3 in 2017 when its hosting software, eFiction, was no longer receiving support. To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in November 2017. We e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are this creator and it hasn't transferred to your AO3 account, please contact us using the e-mail address on [The Alpha Gate collection profile](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/thealphagate).

Usual world. Pretty, if dry and sere is your thing. Desert. Lots and lots of desert. Dunes. More desert. If it was possible to feel blasé about stepping through an alien device to alien worlds millions of light years from home, then he was blasé. He was bored out of his skull. Daniel must be in hog heaven, little desert baby that he was.

“Do the usual, Daniel,” Jack said, waving towards the plinths that lined a long, paved roadway back towards the hot horizon. “Carter?”

But Sam was already shaking her head. “Nothing, sir. This is going to be Daniel’s barrel of monkeys.”

That got a glare from Daniel. Four years after the fact, and people still found ways to irritate him about monkeys and space. He was beginning to think that his revenge against Jack hadn’t been deep enough. Power-drilling a fake bass to Jack’s office door with a card that said “This is what a fish looks like” had been fairly satisfying at the time. Now, though, it seemed that it just hadn’t been sufficient. He’d have to think of something else, something more subtle. And the fact that it was years after the comment? Made it all the more sweet. Revenge, dishes served cold, that sort of thing.

While Daniel hauled out his archaeological kit and started cleaning out inscriptions and engravings, Jack tromped a slow circle around the Stargate while Sam and Teal’c ventured up towards the top of the dunes. Sam keyed her radio and reported, “Sir, the road goes off into the distance, and I think I see some buildings or monuments on the horizon.”

“Understood, Carter. You and Teal’c come back down here. I’m getting a funny feeling about this.” If there was anything Jack had learned, it was to always listen to his feelings, good or bad or funny. And usually, when on an alien planet, it was a funny feeling that quickly turned to bad. Granted, there was nothing here that really sat up and said funny or bad, but … it was too quiet. There wasn’t even a wind. Jack maneuvered back towards Daniel, who now had his notebook out and was obviously translating, his lips moving silently as he dragged a finger against rows and rows of hieroglyphs, right to left, up to down. “Daniel? Anything here, or can we get out of this big litter box?”

Daniel glanced briefly at him, his eyes startlingly blue against his light tan and the desert camo he wore. “Funny you should say that, Jack,” Daniel started, then there was the sound of a ring transporter, and four Jaffa appeared before the gate.

“Aw, crap,” Jack said, slinging his P-90 forward. But he was too late. Too quick, no time to think, it was almost embarrassing. Zat blasts took out Daniel and Jack, and before Sam and Teal’c could come within firing range, the Jaffa had grabbed their downed team members with unusual swiftness and efficiency, and ringed the six of them away. Sam and Teal’c stood, open-mouthed, before hurtling for the DHD.

~*~

It was a huge room. Huge. Bigger than the usual Goa’uld expression of hubris. There were lots and lots of pillars, tall, towering columns inscribed with more hieroglyphics. The place was actually well-kept, tidy, clean, filled with billowing draperies that wrapped and shimmied past all those imposing columns. The usual Jaffa lingered about, looking forbidding and alert and guarding a currently empty throne of white marble. The Goa’uld always did seem to go in for uncomfortable furniture, but Jack was glad – he hoped it gave them hemorrhoids. Petty, but true. Anything to make a snakehead’s life even just an iota more unpleasant. And it was Jack’s goal in life to up the unpleasant factor as high as he could.

“So,” he said to the nearest bastion of Jaffa imperturbability, “who’s the head honcho around here?”

The Jaffa didn’t even deign to answer.

Jack shrugged and turned to Daniel who was, like he, kneeling with his hands tied behind him. “Any clues?”

Daniel made a wry face. “Bast,” he said.

“Bast?” Jack asked. He remembered the name, just not the usual long explanation of myth, fable and place in the Egyptian pantheon.

“Cat goddess,” Daniel began. “She was the daughter of Ra and initially was a goddess of the sun. She became a goddess of the moon after the Greeks got their hands on Egypt. She was the protector of women, and her totem animal was the cat, an animal of secrets, great hunting skills, and stealth. To harm one of her animals was considered a great crime. Cats were kept in the temples to help with the rat populations and as a physical manifestation of the goddess herself.”

“Daughter of Ra?” Jack asked, alarmed, focusing on the one thing that really meant anything to him. “D’oh. The fact that we offed Daddy-o probably won’t go over so well.”

Daniel shrugged, a tight movement dictated by his bound arms. “Maybe she’ll be grateful, like Osiris.”

Jack gave him a sharp look. Daniel rarely spoke of Sarah Gardner, and certainly never in such light, unconcerned tones. “Well, let’s hope,” Jack said finally. “Anything positive about this would be a help.”

“A help to whom?” asked a low voice from behind them, and Jack and Daniel started in surprise and turned their heads to view the Goa’uld du jour.

Bast was beautiful. Of course she was, Jack thought to himself, eyeing Her Evil Gorgeousness appreciatively while simultaneously hating her guts. She was small, with fine bones and straight black hair and yellow eyes. Not just the usual glowing gold of Goa’uld eyes, but actual amber eyes that seemed far too perceptive for Jack’s own good, staring at him unblinkingly like … well, like a cat’s. She did the usual smug Goa’uld parade around Jack and Daniel, dragging her finger lightly over Jack’s bisected eyebrow, trailing the back of her hand along Daniel’s cheek, tapping inquisitively on Daniel’s glasses. She removed the glasses gently, peered through them, shrugged, let them drop to the ground, and drove her heel into them. The crunch of glass and metal separating violently seemed to echo and bounce from pillar to pillar.

“Do not hide such beauty,” the woman said, her voice rich with symbiote reverberation, tilting Daniel’s face up to scrutinize more closely the fair skin, the blue eyes, the small beauty mark on the left cheek. She brushed a thumb over Daniel’s bottom lip, then quirked a smile at Jack, who was staring in impotent, silent fury. “I am handling your man,” Bast said to Jack, continuing to stroke Daniel’s lip. Even as the Goa’uld goddess found more and more amusement in the situation, Jack found his reservoir of humor drying up in a heat-flash of anger.

“He is my friend,” Jack said flatly and immediately. “I don’t understand – no, I don’t care to understand what you mean by ‘my man.’” Jack was pissed at himself for showing how much he cared about Daniel right off the bat, but the Goa’uld had surprised him. It would be so easy, now, for Bast to use Daniel against him. But she was going to do that anyway, so why regret now the semantics of the how and why? “If anything, he is his own man.” Jack looked away from Bast, his eyes drawn unerringly to the sight of Daniel’s glasses, shattered under her tiny, sandal-bound foot.

Bast merely waved her hand impatiently. “Semantics. You humans, so concerned with words,” she said, her tone clearly bespeaking her boredom. “It is action that defines a man. Or goddess, as the case may be.” A final pass around Daniel and Jack, and she went to sit on her marble throne. As if that was a cue, there was the soft sound of mewing, and a dozen cats drifted out from behind flowing gauzy drapes, slinking beside the throne and jumping into Bast’s lap, curling behind her on the back of the throne, draping themselves across her feet. Jack had to bite his lip from saying something incredibly crude about pussies.

“Look,” Daniel said, peering in the direction of Bast. “Shall we cut right to the chase? What do you want from us? Are you going to torture us? Use us against another Goa’uld? Let us go, perhaps?” Daniel’s voice was hopeful in that way that said he knew there was no way in Netu he and Jack would be getting out of this one unscathed, let alone alive.

Bast merely bent her amber gaze to Daniel’s face and considered him thoughtfully, stroking a short-haired midnight cat who sat, Sphinx-like, on her knees. “I do not know,” she admitted finally, scratching behind the cat’s ears. “I’m thinking I would like to bed you both, perhaps together, perhaps one at a time.”

Jack’s eyebrows rose. “Well, that’s refreshingly blunt,” he said casually, shifting painfully on his crappy knees. “Not unexpected, but your candor is much appreciated. Hathor had the same direct honesty.”

“Until we killed her,” Daniel added happily, staring at Bast, his blue eyes hard and cold. “You won’t get much of a good time out of us, I’m afraid,” he said bitingly. “We don’t care for your kind. In fact, most of your kind end up just like Hathor, very, very disappointed and very, very dead.”

Bast shrugged, a maneuver both elegant and chilling. Jack bit the inside of his lip. “Do you think I am stupid, Daniel Jackson? You are the man who opened the Tau’ri Gate. You were the husband to the host of Amonet. You are known as the heart and conscience of SG-1. Oh, yes, Daniel Jackson, I know who you are. I remember you from the gathering of System Lords. You were dancing attendance on Yu. So pretty. So fetching, with those bare arms, and those exotic blue eyes. I must say, your slave gear was attractive, if a bit heavy-handed. The clothing I choose for my slaves is far more flattering.”

“Trust a woman to think about fashion,” Jack muttered.

“And you, Colonel Jack O’Neill of SG-1,” Bast said, turning her feline gaze on Jack. “Scourge of the Goa’uld. The thorn in Apophis’s side. Conspirator with the godless Tok’ra, protected of the Asgard, confidante of Thor.” Jack preened and flashed Daniel a grin, who returned it with one that was part amusement and part obvious pride. “Between you, Daniel Jackson, Samantha Carter, and the shol’va, Teal’c, you have killed Ra, Cronus, Hathor, Heru’ur, Sokar, Seth … “

“A Who’s Who of the Parasitic and Badly Dressed,” Jack offered with a nasty smile, regretting the words the instant they left his mouth, and that’s when the claws came out. So to speak.

Not even standing from her throne, her bare right arm still petting the black cat, the Goa’uld queen raised her left hand with the ribbon device and blasted Jack with a sharp roiling of power. Jack was sent skidding across the marble floor into a pillar, his head making blunt contact with the base. He lay stunned for a moment, then was dragged by two Jaffa back to Daniel’s side and forced back to his knees. He could feel a trickle of blood from his temple where skull had met stone. The number of cats around Bast shifted sickeningly, multiplying and subtracting with concussed rapidity.

“This is boring, Colonel,” Bast said, now stroking the cat with both hands. It stretched and purred, its contented rumble clearly reaching to the kneeling men. “There are far more pleasant things we could be doing besides sparring pointlessly, like scribes over a favorite papyrus. I am going to play with you. Toy with you. Enjoy you. You will be willing. Both of you. Because if you are not, I shall harm the other.”

Daniel rolled his eyes. “So kill us, already,” he said in his most bored tone. “Because neither of us will make it easy for you, you won’t like it, and it would be just faster to kill us now and save us all the hassle.” While Jack admired Daniel’s bravado, he wasn’t quite sure about his current method of snake-baiting. Openly inviting the Goa’uld to kill them seemed a bit extreme, even for Jack. These things should be done with some modicum of subtlety.

Bast, too, was not pleased with Daniel’s words. She finally stood, gently placing her black cat on the wide arm of the throne and descending the pristine white steps to stand in front of Daniel, his eyes level with her breasts and the gold-and-lapis necklace that lay wide against her chest. She cupped his face in her hands and bent down to brush his lips with hers. “I shall kill you,” she said softly, but not so softly that Jack could not hear. “And then I shall revive you in my sarcophagus and begin again. Over and over, Daniel Jackson. Over. And over. I shall savor your flesh and bathe in your blood. For as long as I wish to play with you, my pretty Tau’ri.” She licked a long, wet line from his chin to his hairline. “My cats have nine lives. I wonder if humans do as well.” 

That shut Daniel up in a hurry. 

~*~

They were taken through wide, airy corridors adorned with gold hieroglyphs, enormous vases filled with flowers and catnip, past tall, glass-less windows girded by shutters that could be closed against sandstorms. They were led to a bathing room with a huge, in-ground tub big enough to swim laps in, and were told to bathe and dress.

With a minimum of effort, they did, casting eyes at the Jaffa standing guard inside the bathing room, knowing they couldn’t say anything about Teal’c or Sam on the off-hand chance that Bast was unaware of their presence on the planet. Jack wouldn’t bet on it, though. Bast knew they came as a complete set of four, and he was pretty sure there were only three possible scenarios right now: that Sam and Teal’c were also prisoners, that they were dead, or that they were shut off from the gate. In any of those scenarios, he and Daniel were still trapped here, cat toys for the ultimate bitch in heat. 

Much to Daniel’s irritation, Jack couldn’t stop yammering about the clothes Bast wanted them to wear, although Jack thought “clothes” was a generous word with which to describe the garments. Short, pleated linen skirts were all they had, and Jack was about ready to pop a blood vessel. Daniel, on the other hand, just stared at the skirts in distaste, then slid his on. Really, it was just an Egyptian thing, and he’d done the Egyptian thing enough times in his life to just shrug and try to bear the vague ignominy of flashing his legs to the world. He even allowed the gold armbands and the gleaming pectoral with the lapis scarab, but he dug in his heels at the earrings. Both men nearly came to blows with the obviously cowed woman who tried to paint their eyes with kohl.

“No way in hell,” Jack snarled, throwing the little clay pot across the room, where it shattered with a satisfying crack against the marble wall. “She wants her toys, they’re coming as-is, no more extras.” He began stripping his own armbands off but stopped when a Jaffa shifted his grip on his staff weapon.

“But, Tau’ri – “ she began in Egyptian, “you must, it is Your Goddess’s desire.”

Daniel precisely translated Jack’s words for her, adding, “Your mangy little mistress is just going to have to get used to the idea that we’re not going to come quietly. She wants us, she’ll have to fight for us.”

Trembling, the woman bowed out of the room and fled, leaving Jack and Daniel to avoid each other’s eyes and stare out the windows at the rolling dunes far below. Every now and then, a cat would stroll into the room, the door held open by a Jaffa as if the cat was royalty. Which, Jack supposed, they were, according to Daniel.

“I can’t believe this,” Jack muttered as he joined Daniel at a window, standing shoulder to bare shoulder with him. “Stuck with the nuttiest Goa’uld of all.”

“Well, at least she hasn’t breathed on us or put us in a fiery hell-pit,” Daniel said, moving his right leg away from the attentions of a marmalade tabby. “That’s some comfort.”

“I dunno,” Jack said, rolling his eyes and bumping Daniel’s arm with his. “I think I’d rather be rotting in Netu than being pimped out to the Fancy Feast calendar girl.” It was hard coming out with the humor, though. There was something about Bast that was chilling, crushing any attempt at jocularity. Jack was getting the dim feeling that he wasn’t going to be able to smart-mouth his way through this one.

Daniel snorted in amusement. “Maybe … you know … “ He wiggled his eyebrows in a vain attempt to say “Sam and Teal’c” without actually speaking aloud.

Jack’s face sobered. “Don’t hold your breath, Daniel,” he said quietly. “They'll come, but for now? We can only count on ourselves, you know that.”

Daniel nodded, equally serious now. “Jack,” he began, running the pleats of his skirt through his fingers. “If she uses the sarcophagus – “

“One thing at a time,” Jack said brusquely, nervously twisting an armband. “Maybe she was bluffing.”

Daniel snorted in rampant disbelief and irritation, and channeled that irritation into the ability to stop his frantic skirt-twitching and stare out at the sun-struck desert.

~*~

They took Daniel first. A Jaffa on each arm, he was escorted out of their room by five cats, their tails held high. Jack didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. They were caught in a Cecil B. De Mille movie that was rife with crass, sneering villains and a bad wardrobe department. It was his worst nightmare. Add to that the very real fact that, crass villains or not, their captor was a Goa’uld, and Daniel had just been marched away to get raped. It was tearing Jack apart inside, and his own confusion over his inner turmoil did not mix well with the humiliation of being an unwilling lead actor in this bastardized version of Cleopatra. If they ever made it back to the SGC, and Ferretti got wind of this, he’d never live it down. He’d find Purina Cat Chow in his coffee maker, he was sure of it.

So there was nothing to do while he waited – either for Daniel or for Bast’s minions – but think on their time here on Krazy Kat World and try to figure out some way to escape. He thumbed through ideas in his mind like a tired deck of cards, but he wasn’t coming up with any winning hands. There were too many Jaffa, they had no weapons – hell, they didn’t even have clothes, now – and there was no knowing how far from the gate they might be. Jack could surmise that he and Daniel were being held in the buildings that Carter had spotted from the dune by the Gate, but there was no guarantee of this.

He was no closer to an escape solution three hours later when the Jaffa and the feline escort came for him. Kept in their firm grips, Jack was marched back down the wide hallways to a lush garden courtyard, open to the sky and full of soft divans, low tables, seemingly millions of exotic, tasseled pillows, and palm trees. In the center of the courtyard were two tall, smooth columns of white marble topped with carved cats, and it was to one of these that Daniel was shackled, his arms chained above him to a ring set into the marble. His head lolled back against the column, the tracks of blood tears running down his cheeks and throat, his smooth chest blotted with welts, his hips bruised. His skirt was at his feet, shredded and bloody, and his legs were black with deep claw marks. His eyes when they met Jack’s were glassy and dark.

“Jack,” Daniel sighed, pulling at his chains.

“Daniel,” Jack said, lunging for him, almost brushing Daniel’s chest with his fingertips before the Jaffa yanked him away. “Are you all right?”

Daniel laughed, brittle and tight. “Still breathing,” he said lightly, and groaned when his knees gave way and he was hanging by the chains. Jack was shackled to the second white pillar, facing Daniel.

“What has she done to you?” Jack asked, yanking futilely at his chains.

Daniel gestured with his chin towards a small table set to one side on which rested a long pipe and a bowl full of a brown herb. “Catnip for people,” he said muzzily, struggling back to his feet. “It’s got a hell of a kick.”

Jack didn’t like the sound of this. “What does it do?”

“It does many things,” that silky Goa’uld voice said from behind Jack, and he was instantly irritated at the way Bast kept slinking up on them unexpectedly. Like a goddamn cat.

Bast had changed clothes, too. Whereas before she had worn the expected Egyptian goddess kalasiris of long, pleated white linen and strappy sandals, she now wore a tight, cloth-of-gold number that was more an accessory than a dress. Her feet were bare, and she ran her hands over her breasts luxuriously, her fingernails long, tapered and painted with gold. Jack didn’t find it difficult in the least to not stare at her well-proportioned body. Something about the fact that that pretty woman had a snaky parasite in her head took all the sensual allure out of things. Go figure. Behind her came six Jaffa pushing a golden sarcophagus which they placed by Bast, the apex of a triangle formed with the two marble plinths. Then they retreated to guard the sun-drenched courtyard, their faces unmoving. Bast ran her hand lovingly over the hieroglyphs of the sarcophagus before approaching Daniel.

“Lovely Tau’ri,” Bast rumbled in her throat, so like a purr, rubbing along Daniel’s body, thrusting her hips sinuously against Daniel’s naked groin. He was hard, and Jack guessed the people-catnip had something to do with it. “You are so lovely, so flawless,” she murmured, running her hands over his chest, licking his armpits, nibbling at his collarbone. 

“Leave him alone, you flea-bitten bitch,” Jack growled, straining at his chains. Yes, he cared about Daniel, he was protective of him, Bast knew that, would use it against him. The jig had been up right from the start, and he was going to give the bitch hell while he could.

Bast smiled at him, a lazy, creamy smile and she actually licked her lips, slow and sensuous, tongue leaving a wet saliva trail over her upper lip, then her lower. Jack shuddered. “Rude human,” she murmured at Jack while her hand ran over the welts on Daniel’s chest, digging her nails into the tender skin. Daniel bit back a cry and his eyes locked with Jack’s. Hang in there, Jack told him silently. Then that small hand slid further down Daniel’s skin, cupping his balls, squeezing his cock, before she slid to her knees, grasped Daniel’s hips in bruising fists, and took him in her mouth.

“N-no,” Daniel stuttered, and his hips jerked, first towards, then away, from her mouth, the desire and revulsion clear on his face. Bast flexed her hands, digging her long, golden nails into the skin of his thighs and Jack realized, horrified, that those weren’t just prettily decorated fingernails, but sharp wedges of cartilage that had been lacquered to a steely hardness. Sliding her mouth off Daniel, a long string of saliva trailing from her mouth, Bast turned to look at Jack over her shoulder, a smug smile on her lips. Then she punched two of those fingernails into Daniel’s left femoral artery.

Jack wanted to be sick. While he hollered and shouted imprecations, he wanted to turn his head and vomit all over the pretty tile courtyard, but he couldn’t leave Daniel’s gaze, couldn’t leave Daniel to feel his life draining out of him, alone. He kept his face turned to Daniel’s, even as those eyes, so blue, like the Aegean Sea, started to glaze over. The blood poured from his thigh, rich and red, and Bast touched her tongue delicately to the wound and began to lap at it.

Minutes passed, Jack fell silent, sickened and heart-sick, and still Bast tongued the wound, letting the blood run over her chin, down her neck, pooling between her perfect breasts, sliding down her belly, her hands clutching spasmodically on Daniel’s calves, and Daniel’s face lost all color, shading from tan to pink to a ghastly, paper-white. Jack never once broke the look he had with Daniel, their gazes locked, even as Daniel’s eyes lost focus, lost depth, lost life.

“Jack,” Daniel groaned, and his eyes slowly closed. Then his body sagged until he was nothing more than beautiful muscle and skin hanging from the silver chains.

After a few more minutes of licking, Bast rose and gestured to her Jaffa, who unchained Daniel’s bloody body and dragged it to the sarcophagus. Opening the casket with a grind, they pitched Daniel’s body inside like a sack of meal. But the sarcophagus did not close. 

Jack tasted blood and realized he had bitten his lip. He barely acknowledged Bast when the Goa’uld queen stood before him, his eyes riveted on Daniel’s lifeless body in the sarcophagus. He didn’t even notice when her tongue, still red with Daniel’s blood, began to lick at the corners of his mouth, her hands stroking his nipples. Only when she ripped the linen kilt from his hips did his gaze drift back to her, shocky and unstable.

“O’Neill of the Tau’ri,” Bast whispered, cupping his balls in her fingernails, like ripe peaches balanced precariously on the tips of needles. He hadn’t been dosed with the people-nip, and those nails felt like railroad spikes. “How the System Lords will clamor to hear the tales of this.” Jack felt himself suddenly snap into focus, the fear thrumming through him as Bast fondled him almost delicately. Her teeth, sharp and edged like a cat’s, latched onto a nipple and Jack gritted his teeth to keep himself silent. Her pointed nails scored down his chest, down his ribs, from his hips to his thighs, and then he saw her go to her knees and closed his eyes. A few labored breaths later and he was in her mouth, limp and practically shriveling, and he felt sick again. Then there was the driving pain in his thigh, and the warm rush of blood down his leg, and he felt the world begin to swim. His last thought as his life ebbed out over Bast’s lips was that, at least, they would put him with Daniel in the sarcophagus and they could be dead together.

~*~

They awoke lying on a large, soft bed, the soothing shadows of the moon blowing in through the floor-length draperies that covered the windows. They lay there, hyper-aware of each other and of themselves, listening to the sound of their blood pumping once again through their veins. Daniel wanted to groan as he shifted, but he found, just like so many years ago, that he felt good. Better than good. He felt energized. And the knowledge of why he felt so good drained all the strength from his limbs. “Well, shit,” he said softly to the white canopy overhead.

“That about sums it up,” Jack replied, just as softly, then turned on his side and propped his head up on his hand to look at Daniel. “You all right?” he asked.

“For having been dead?” Daniel asked, not looking at Jack. “You bet. Can’t wait for it to happen again. Once more, with feeling.” 

“What do you suppose she’s up to? I mean, why not sling us into a dungeon or whatever passes for a dungeon in this place, instead of giving us a nice, soft bed? What’s up with that?” Jack shimmied a little closer to Daniel, needing to feel the heat from Daniel’s skin. This mission had turned so ugly and so surreal in a matter of minutes. Daniel was normal, was comforting, was … Daniel.

Daniel shrugged, his eyes still on the canopy. “I don’t know. Well, I can guess.” And he was silent.

“So guess already,” Jack urged, poking him gently with his free hand.

Daniel batted the hand away in irritation. “I think it’s just mind games,” he said slowly, thoughtfully, finally turning his head to look at Jack, his face a tapestry of moonlight and dark shadows. “I think she’s giving us time together to make us feel normal, or something, and then she’ll start all over again tomorrow and it’ll be that much harder for us after having a respite.”

“Oh.” Jack thought on this a while, and didn’t like his conclusions. “This is going to suck.”

Daniel snorted. “Ya think? What gave it away?”

Jack grimaced. “Smart ass.” He thought for another long moment, then said, “I’m hungry. And there’s food and something to drink over there.” Pointing at a well-laden table across the room, he sat up and realized that he was naked under the light sheet that covered them. “Well, hell,” he commented, looking at his naked thighs. 

Daniel made the same discovery and pondered for a moment before shrugging, pulled the sheet around him – which brought an annoyed “Hey!” from Jack – and made his stumbling way to the table. Jack rolled his eyes, ripped a drapery off the bed, wrapped it around himself, and joined Daniel, who had already started in on the fruit and icy water.

They ate in silence for a while, handing each other bread, cheeses, and spicy dried meats that neither wanted to guess what it might be. After they had sated themselves and drunk half the water in one gulp, they sank back in their chairs, looking soberly into the depths of their cups.

“Suppose there’s any point to seeing what’s out there?” Daniel asked, gesturing beyond the blowing draperies to what was obviously a veranda.

“I wouldn’t think so,” Jack said, just as a shadow passed before the window. “Yup. Jaffa. I’m betting lots of ‘em.”

“And even if we did try to escape,” Daniel added gloomily, “and even if she killed us, she’d just bring us back to life in the sarcophagus. Oh, the choices. Die at her whim or ours. I’m thinking, the fewer times in the sarcophagus, the better.”

“Oh, yeah,” Jack agreed, draining his cup. “So no escape right now. Why add on extra deaths?”

Daniel turned a little pale, visible even in the moonlight. “Why, indeed?” he said softly.

“Daniel?” Jack sat forward, a hand coming over the table to touch Daniel’s forearm.

Daniel took a deep breath, centering himself. “I’m fine,” he said, attempting a smile that came out small and beleaguered.

Jack’s hand settled warmly on Daniel’s arm, then clasped and tugged. “Let’s go be comfortable,” he said, and led Daniel over to the bed.

They arranged themselves beneath the sheet that Daniel unwound from his hips, and after a few moments of lying stiffly next to each other, again aware of their bodies, their nakedness, their pained vulnerability, Jack rolled over and took Daniel in his arms, feeling the younger man’s cool skin against his own like fresh cotton. “We’ll figure this out,” Jack whispered into Daniel’s hair, and Daniel nodded, holding Jack’s shoulders in an iron grip. They lay that way for a little while, their breaths slowing, evening, the thumping of their hearts calming. Then they settled into the mattress, their backs firmly pressed against each other so they could, futilely, keep an eye on the room beyond their bed. 

~*~

The next time Bast chained them to the pillars, she chained them facing the stone so they couldn’t see each other, their arms wrapped around the pillars, cheeks pressed to the marble. To make it worse, she blindfolded them, so all they could do was talk to each other, hear each other. There really was nothing they could say but “Hang in there” and “I’m here for you” and “Breathe through it” like it was some sort of obscene Lamaze class. They knew they were mouthing platitudes. All that really helped was knowing that each man was so intently focused on the other, their thoughts so centered on the other, they could have sworn they were inside each other’s minds.

For her entertainment, the Cat Queen used a cat o’ nine tails, each strip of the whip tipped with a barb that caught cruelly at the flesh. Over and over she lashed them, wandering back and forth between Jack and Daniel, a bloody trail of her footprints marking over the pristine courtyard tiles between the two men. She talked at them, endlessly, describing how they looked in great detail, her words sharp and gloating as she pulled off shreds of their flesh and tossed them to her cats. Then she herself shimmied up behind each of them, running her tongue over the gouges in their backs, raspy and laving, from their shoulders down to their waists, then over the deeply carved runnels in their buttocks and thighs. Once, Daniel shuddered as she sucked the blood from the back of his knee and he choked out, “You really are a sick bitch, you know that?” and she merely dug one of her lethal fingernails in between his third and fourth ribs and pulled herself up his body like climbing a rock wall with pitons. 

When it was Jack’s turn to serve as a bloody buffet, he tried to make some comment about Bast coughing up hairballs, but he couldn’t get the tone right, his voice flat and plodding with pain.

When they died this time, they had no skin left on their entire backsides, their blood running freely from tortured veins and muscles. Bast’s cats milled about their feet, lipping at the streams of blood that ran between them and joined in a pool at the foot of the sarcophagus.

~*~

They awoke just as the sun was setting, fresh energy racing through them, laid out side by side on the bed. They didn’t move for a while, merely lay there, feeling how fresh and new their skin felt, their backs rubbing against the cool sheets, the wind whispering over their healed skin. Sinew and tendon flexed properly again as they rolled and sat up, gingerly testing their shoulders, their backs, inspecting each other to reassure themselves that they were whole again. Finally, still without speaking, not bothering with the dubious coverage of sheet or drapery, they arose as one in their bare skins and went to the table where dinner waited for them. Still in silence, they ate, consumed by their own thoughts, dark and brooding. But they sat with their chairs flush against each other so their arms knocked as they reached for goblets, their knees brushed under the fine linen tablecloth. They shared the same plate and the same cup, eating quickly, drinking deeply. The water was icy, and in a small carafe they found a sweetened wine of lotus flowers.

“How many times has she killed us now?” Jack asked at one point, his voice husky.

Daniel shrugged listlessly. “I don’t know. I lost count.”

And they were silent again until they were finished with their meal.

When they did finally speak at length, it was to murmur words of comfort. No more trying to figure out what Bast’s plan was. It was obvious. They were toys, truly toys to her, bright, shiny Tau’ri toys, somethings, not someones, to be played with. Every time she took their blood and flesh from them, they felt the despair deeper in their hearts, like a sick, lurking feeling that could never be vomited up. So they tried to stem that sickness and spoke of Sam and Teal’c, wondering if they were alive, if they were back home, if they could ever come for them. And then they would speak of other friends, and told each other of their younger selves before the Stargate had burst its event horizon through their lives. And when the hope of friends faded with the moon, they would simply whisper of the colors of their planet, the feel of the seasons, something to hold against the endless vista of sand and desert and dunes that assaulted them whenever they rose from their bed to be taken to Bast’s courtyard of horror. Then, when the words ran out, dry and useless, they simply held each other, huddled on a divan that faced the moonlit veranda, trying to find an internal warmth that was daily being leeched from them.

~*~

Bast killed them with sand, the whitest, finest sand, trickling it down their skin, drying their pores, clogging their senses. Pumped full of the hallucinogenic smoke, they could only hang, hardened and wanting, while she scrubbed their dicks with the sand, removing layer after painful layer of skin, then licking the blood from the tips. Laughing joyously, she held fistfuls of the stuff and flung it at them, scouring their eyes with it. The sun was brutal, glaring off the sand, stabbing their eyes with white reflections. “My lovely humans,” Bast murmured, rubbing herself against their legs, the sand like talc between their flesh and hers, sliding, shifting, her wet heat leaving sticky trails down their hips through the soft sand. She forced it down their throats, poured it in drifts about their feet until it reached their knees, their chests, their necks, until they choked on the grains, until there was nothing to breathe but sand and more sand. She piled the sand until their eyes were dry and gritted, until their nostrils were cemented, their ears stopped, and death was a welcome haven from the scouring bits of tiny stones, even as she tore their orgasms from them with her hands and her fingernails. And again, even as she killed them, she spoke to them, promising more blood, more pain, more death. “Pretty Tau’ri,” she whispered, and kissed and jerked the last of their breath out of them.

~*~

This time, they were awake when they were taken out of the sarcophagus together, their skin healthy but their minds pale. Limp and terrified, they averted their eyes from the blood-spattered tile as they were dragged, unresisting, back to their room with the flowing curtains. They sat naked at the table with the fresh fruits and cheeses, and ate like automatons. They drank both pitchers of water, trying to wash the dusty taste of sand from their memories. As soon as they were finished, they went to the bed, huddling in the center of it, their arms wrapped tightly around each other, bare flesh pressed to bare flesh, legs tangled, trying to find themselves in each other, something that had once been so easy.

As they whispered and held each other, they thought, with cutting clarity, of the past two days of horror and how those days of death had stripped the fine layers of bullshit from their minds, like the layers of an onion, leaving a shining kernel of bitter, poignant truth in each of them. 

For Jack, his initial reaction to Bast stroking Daniel’s face, when they had first been taken prisoner, had been white-hot rage, searing and pure. At the time, he’d been convinced that it had everything to do with friendship and being Daniel’s teammate and the fact that Daniel was not in control of his own body, vulnerable and defiant. Now, though .. now, when they had only each other for succor, for reassurance, for the reminder that they were more than mere toys, Jack wanted to free both himself and Daniel and … and be the reason that Daniel gave up control of that fine body, willingly, joyfully, be on the receiving end of that great love, that immense empathy. While this was a novel, alien thought, Jack embraced it. Yes, he was military, and repression was a required class at the Academy. But now, as they lost their lives in violent and painful ways, over and over and over again, he was focusing on what really mattered to him. 

And that was Daniel. Beautiful, frustrating, compassionate, idealistic, stubborn Daniel. With eyes like tropical waters, with skin like silk, with lips like … well, he didn’t know what like, he was no good at the romantic comparisons, but he knew that Daniel moved him, deep inside where he’d stored away his humanity where no one could touch it. No one except Daniel.

For Daniel, Jack was strength. He’d always known that Jack was his pillar, his touchstone, his foundation, and the past two days had only deepened that belief. When Jack had lashed out at Bast, Daniel had felt only warmth at being so valued, and now, that valued feeling, though threatened every minute in that courtyard, simply grew into cherishing. When Daniel felt himself succumbing to the darkling tide of despair in his mind, he’d look at Jack, meet his eyes, and the touch of Jack’s soul on his would bolster him for a few more minutes, a few more breaths to be spent with Jack. Jack was what really mattered to him.

Jack, with all his hasty, hotheaded, stubborn, caring ways, his dark eyes, his silver hair, and the lean body that was scarred with a lifetime of battle. Jack touched him inside where he’d locked away his needs, his desires to be held and wanted and never let go. Only Jack could reach his tiny reservoir of trust and be gifted with it all. No one but Jack.

~*~

Bast brought them to the courtyard and had them chained down to the decorative tiles, arms pulled uncomfortably taut above their heads, legs locked with a foot of space between their knees. If they stretched every muscle, they could barely touch fingertips as they lay, side by side. The courtyard floor was cool beneath their skin, and never seemed to warm, not even later when their blood splashed and pooled, when it should have warmed the slate. Bast’s Jaffa forced the smoke into them until their limbs were lax, their mouths slack, and their dicks harder than they’d ever been in their lives. Bast walked around them, between them, over them, her skirt barely brushing the bottom of her ass, her breasts barely covered by a wisp of blue lapis-colored cloth. She was beautiful, exotic, and the very thought of her would have reduced any hardness to a tiny, pale shadow of itself, if it weren’t for the drugging smoke.

Today, she decided her favorite was Daniel. Yesterday’s romp through the sandbox had been Jack’s day – Bast had sucked him off as he suffocated in the sand. Today, she walked on Daniel. Her small feet started at his legs, then slowly, carefully, flexed over his thighs, pausing at his groin, her toes dipping to stroke his balls with a pointed, hardened nail. Then she walked his chest, three mincing steps, coming to rest with a foot on each shoulder. Smiling down at him, she touched herself, rocking on her heels, Daniel’s body shifting back and forth on the tiles. He turned his head, away from Jack, and there were sounds of retching.

Bast took her time, her torture not in blood and pain, but in saliva and pleasure, kissing every inch of their sun-warmed flesh, running her tongue along shinbones, kissing the swell of hips, brushing her softness against their hardness. Now, Jack and Daniel tried hard not to speak to each other, equally embarrassed and horrified by their reluctant reactions, their hips bucking, their muscles twitching, the moans coming, unbidden, from behind their clenching teeth. 

It was a short time to this death, but Bast drew it out as long as possible. Sinking her heat down over each man in turn, she put her small hands around their throats and rode them, her grip tightening incrementally, the pressure around their windpipes increasing as the pleasure built. And through it all she whispered, “Next time, it shall be my Jaffa who shall take you, my Jaffa who shall ride you, my Jaffa who shall ravish you, my Jaffa who shall be so intimately pleasured. Oh, my beautiful Tau’ri, you are more tender than ever I had thought.” As she came, and they came, her hands crushed their thoraxes, her nails drove into their carotid arteries, and they died while their release still shuddered through them.

~*~

They awoke together in the sarcophagus before the lid had even begun to move, on their sides, pressed chest to chest, hip to hip and nose to nose. Clutching each other tightly, they breathed each other’s scents while they waited for the Jaffa to take them out.

“Jack,” Daniel whispered, resting his forehead on Jack’s shoulder. Jack’s arms were around his waist, and Daniel could feel their slight trembling, an echo of the shivers that wracked his own body.

“I know,” Jack answered softly, leaning his cheek on Daniel’s soft hair. “I know.”

They were silent for a bit, holding each other fiercely, trying not to notice how the white light inside the sarcophagus washed their skin to a pale blue, the color of whey milk. There was only the sound of their lungs working to breathe, their blood pumping with renewed vitality, and that soft white light, like some sort of purgatorial sun that had no source.

“How much longer,” Daniel said finally, rubbing his cheek against Jack’s. His eyes were blue as a lotus flower in the half-light from the sarcophagus.

Jack shook his head, keeping the soft pressure of Daniel’s skin against his. “I don’t know, Daniel,” he replied. “I really don’t. She could do this for a very long time.”

“But Sam … Teal’c,” Daniel said, with almost a note of hope in his voice. “How many days has it been?”

“This is only day four,” answered Jack. The white light leached the color from Daniel’s cheeks.

Daniel choked. “Only,” he echoed. “Only. They’ll be coming soon. They must be coming soon. They – “

The sarcophagus’s lid began to move and Daniel stopped talking, his eyes meeting Jack’s briefly, the exchange of hope and strength swift and penetrating. Without thinking twice, Jack pressed his lips firmly to Daniel’s for a glancing second, then let the Jaffa manhandle him out of the sarcophagus, followed by Daniel.

“Tau’ri,” said Bast’s First Prime, of whose name Jack and Daniel had never been made aware. His large, sun-darkened hands fell heavily on Daniel’s shoulders, and with a finger he lifted Daniel’s face up to meet his eyes. “You are very pretty indeed,” the First Prime said, rubbing his thumb over Daniel’s lips. “My goddess has exquisite taste.”

“Your goddess is a false goddess,” Jack said harshly, futilely, straining against the arms that held him. “She’s nothing more than a cheap whore.” 

The First Prime backhanded Jack with little effort. “Silence, Tau’ri. My goddess has decreed that we may not enjoy the fruits of your flesh until the morrow, but that does not mean I cannot taste a little beforehand.”

If possible, Daniel paled even further. “Fruits?” he mouthed silently at Jack. Jack shrugged, his face tight. 

The Jaffa had seen the exchange and smiled, stepping closer to Daniel until there was barely half an inch between their skins, Daniel’s head craned back to match the First Prime’s gaze. “Fruits,” he whispered into Daniel’s mouth, hands clamped to Daniel’s head, his lips a mere breath away from kissing Daniel. Jack could see the tremor that shot through Daniel, but his friend continued to glare at the First Prime.

“Some fruits are poisonous,” Daniel said softly, and snapped his teeth forward, biting at the Jaffa’s lips.

With a roar, the First Prime flung Daniel away from him, his face flushing dark red with anger, Goa’uld obscenities dirtying the air.

Jack tried to repress a grin again, and for the first time today felt a brief stirring of hope, a brief flash of his old self. “He called you a hassock,” he informed Daniel politely.

Daniel nodded, biting to keep back his own grin, ignoring the two minor Jaffa who held him in a painful grip. “I’m so insulted,” he said mildly. “I hate being called a piece of furniture.” Jack did grin this time, and together they looked at the First Prime.

The Jaffa was standing with one hand clenched, the other wiping the blood from his mouth. Then he smeared the blood along Daniel’s lips. “I will take great pleasure in you, Tau’ri,” he growled, grabbing Daniel’s chin in a painful grip. “You will feel me in every inch of your body, and I will seed you as you die.” Then he shoved Daniel away from him again and gestured for the Jaffa to take them away.

~*~

The moon was still and cool against his face as he sat, huddled, by the veranda doors. There was no wind tonight, and the frothy white draperies hung still and quiet. The wall was hard against his shoulder blades.

“Jack,” Daniel said softly, his eyes fixed on the tiled floor, tracing the glimmering line of moonlight that sneaked in under the pale curtain. Jack moved from the dining table to sit next to Daniel, their bare skin flinching from the slick floor beneath them.

“Yeah,” Jack whispered, pulling Daniel close to him with an arm around his shoulders.

“She’s going to kill us again.”

“I know.”

Daniel’s eyes drifted shut for a moment. “She’s going to kill us with them,” he said finally, thrusting his chin towards the door, and beyond, where Bast’s Jaffa waited.

“I know,” Jack said again. He pulled Daniel even tighter to him, resting his chin on the crown of Daniel’s head.

“I keep trying to figure out what we can do, what we can say – “

“There’s nothing,” Jack said sharply, shaking Daniel gently. “Stop trying to think you can do something to affect her. We need to think about how to get around her.”

“I’m wondering if we should try the veranda anyway,” Daniel said, wrapping his arms around his knees, drawn up tight against his chest. “I mean, at the very least, it’ll throw her schedule off, right? Put off the Fruits of the Flesh Fiesta she’s planning.”

Jack shook his head. “C’mon, Daniel. You don’t want to buy another run in the sarcophagus.”

Daniel sighed. “No. I don’t. I’m just … “

“I know.”

Silence again, hearing the soft tread as Bast’s Jaffa measured out their perimeters beyond the veranda doors. No wind. No birds. Nothing to alleviate the dead silence of this sandy planet.

“I … “ Shuddering, Daniel raised his eyes and Jack couldn’t help but meet them with his own. “I don’t want to die having that be my first time,” Daniel gulped. “She’ll bring me back in the sarcophagus, and the only thing I’ll know is that my first time with a man was rape. I don’t want it to be that.”

Jack’s eyes widened, his breath shortening as his agile mind tumbled over what Daniel was asking, was offering … was needing. Then, so slowly, waiting for a rebuff that never came, he tilted Daniel’s face towards his, running his thumb along the strong jawline. “Then it won’t be the first time,” he whispered, and lowered his lips to Daniel’s. Daniel made a tiny sound, whether shock or pleasure, Jack didn’t know. He eased the pressure of his mouth on Daniel’s, then pressed more firmly when Daniel’s lips opened and his tongue tickled Jack’s.

So unexpected, this turn of events, but so simple to fall into, so right, so easy. Their bodies shifted towards each other, hands coming up to run over arms, shoulders, over chests and hips, soft, stroking, and so tender. Together, they rose, lips still touching, tongues exploring, and once standing they pressed tightly together, arms wrapped around each other like fleshly bonds, feeling the last four days dim to insubstantial shadows in the moonlight. 

It was only a few short steps from the windows to the bed, and they fell together, still locked, still exploring, still so immensely careful. Daniel didn’t ask if Jack knew what he was doing, didn’t care, simply felt the warmth of Jack’s body pressing him into the mattress and was quietly soothed.

When Jack finally took him, his way eased with a thick oil from their dinner table, he was so slow, so cherishing, and Daniel felt the tears slide, unbidden, down his cheeks, tears that Jack caught on his tongue then shared with Daniel in a salty, agonizing kiss. There was still no wind to rustle about them, only the hushed sounds of their breathing, of Daniel’s grunt of surprise as Jack entered him, the tiny “ah, ah, ah” sounds Daniel made as Jack found a rhythm, moving hot and deep, rocking his hips, skin sliding with sweat and tears. When Jack’s hand found him, curved against his belly, he groaned, sharp and heartfelt, moving with Jack, the silk sheets whispering against their heated skin, their rhythm quickening, stuttering, still so deep and filling. Daniel’s senses were overcome, flooded, shattered, his body a tingling nerve that shuddered with every brush of Jack’s hands, lips, hips, thighs. And then they were coming, moans crawling, strained, from their throats, fingers pressing, bruising, into pale skin, heels digging into the bed.

Panting, they lay tangled, still connected, the sweat drying on their skin in a breeze that had finally arisen and made its tentative way into their bedroom, pleasurable tremors rippling through them as their heartbeats slowed. They didn’t speak, just moved skin over skin, inch by savoring inch, storing up the memories for the day ahead, an armory of sensation. 

There was no discussion of repercussions, here or home. Those didn’t matter anymore. They really didn’t. The Air Force, Bast, neither of those things was material in this place, where all they had was each other and the thin shells of their skin to keep back the despair and horror. That they found rapture in the melding of those shells was a sweet luxury, a beneficence that wasn’t to be wasted.

Later, when the moon was setting, Jack took Daniel in his mouth, slowly, languorously, hands cupping the long pale flanks of his thighs, the skin soft as the petals of a lotus flower, Daniel’s toes flexing and arching as the heat spread through him, his blood zipping like it was filled with champagne bubbles. Feeling Daniel come in his mouth, a tiny “oh” escaping his lips, Jack felt his own release flood his stomach, and there was a moment of purest happiness.

Later still, when the moon had set, and Daniel whispered, "Thank you,” and shyly tried to move away, Jack kept him close, lips pressed to Daniel’s temple, hands rubbing in soothing circles on his back.

They were still awake when the dawn found them in the morning, holding tightly to each other.

~*~

Bast’s First Prime and his merry band of Jaffa were there first thing in the morning, pulling them out of each other’s arms and out of the bed, their arms twisted behind them. With his large hands, the First Prime found every bruise from the previous night, his eyes darkening with rage. With that crushing grip, he pulled Jack towards him. “You had him last night,” he grated, his hands tightening about Jack’s throat.

Jack didn’t reply, merely met the man’s gaze with equal hatred.

The hands tightened further. “You took my prize,” the First Prime continued, and Jack started to choke.

“Yes, he had me,” Daniel said venomously, pulling against his captors’ hands. “And when you’re fucking me, he’ll be the one I’m thinking of. Not you, not ever!”

Again, an inarticulate sound of rage from the man, and Jack and Daniel were hauled through the hallways of Bast’s palace to the loathed courtyard and tethered to their marble pillars, their chains long enough so that they could be turned and flipped, facing the pillar or facing the sarcophagus, pliable and easily manipulated.

Bast sat on the end of her sarcophagus, clad in a diaphanous shift of finest linen, her arms, fingers, neck and ears laden with gold and faience jewelry, the ribbon device on her left hand. On her head she wore the pschent, the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt, and Daniel felt his reality shift even more, sliding further into the surreal. This woman, this host, she had been Egyptian, ancient Egyptian, and then she’d been taken by the Goa’uld. She had ruled, this dual personality, for who knows how long, controlling the people that lived along the Nile River. That double crown was so much of Earth, and now … so much of the nightmare their days had become in this sere, alien world.

“You know,” Jack started, glaring balefully at the Goa’uld sitting so demurely on the golden casket, her legs crossed at the knees, “I fucking hate cats. I really do.”

“Jack,” Daniel said, eyes wide. “What are you – “

Jack pressed on. “There’s the fur and the fleas and the scratching the furniture and the litter everywhere and they’re constantly licking their assholes. God. Nasty little creatures. I kick ‘em whenever I can.” Bast slid off the sarcophagus, her face white with rage. “What about you? No? Because I find nothing more soothing that a good, swift kick – “

Bast couldn’t even speak past the fury in her throat. The hand with the ribbon device stretched out, and the red light swelled and throbbed, beginning its burning path between Jack’s eyes.

“Stop!” Daniel shouted, his body bowed with the effort to escape his chains. “You’re killing him!”

“That is what the sarcophagus is for, Daniel Jackson,” Bast spat, practically hissing with her wrath. “He will die, I will raise him again, and – “

“No! Enough! Look, you don’t want your Jaffa to wait, do you?” Shuddering, Daniel looked to Jack, hoping for forgiveness. The fewer times in the sarcophagus, the better. But at this point, was it simply becoming a matter of “six of one, half dozen of the other”?

Thoughtfully, Bast raised her hand, the red light winking out, and Jack sagged in his chains, the skin on his forehead blistered and angry. “Perhaps you are right, my lovely boy,” she said, her voice calmer. She nudged Jack with her knee, then pulled him upright with a hand about his throat.

Jack swallowed convulsively against the pain in his head, the bright, blooming agony that pressed against his skull and corpuscles. “Bitch,” he gasped, then glanced at Daniel. “Anyway, that's why I don't own a cat."

Daniel nodded solemnly, grateful for the respite, however temporary. “I can understand that,” he said agreeably, as if they were having a lovely chat over beers at a bar. Why on Earth had Jack done that? Antagonized Bast like that?

And then he knew. To keep Bast and the First Prime and her horde of Jaffa away from Daniel just that little bit longer. Even though it wouldn’t make much of a difference in the long run, it was the only thing Jack could do for him, and the realization of that dedication, that commitment of self, flushed Daniel’s body and pierced his heart like a javelin.

He loved Jack.

Jack loved him.

And the knowledge of each other was like a burning wire that hissed and sizzled in the air between them.

And if they died over and over again in this place, if they changed and grew hard and parasitical themselves, at least in this one moment there had been born something pure and deep and all-encompassing, something that could halt the universe in its great expansion. It was love, and it was theirs, and the nightmare of their reality couldn’t dim that diamond shine.

~*~

Bast’s First Prime and her Jaffa were nothing if not thorough. Their enjoyment of Jack and Daniel was slow, wretched, and ravishingly horrible. Wishing his pets-for-the-day to be as receptive as possible, the First Prime had them smoked up again with the people-nip, as Jack stupidly called it. Again, they were reduced to fuzzy vision, cottonmouth, and a hard-on that could power-drive nails through oak.

Bast’s First Prime was a perverted fellow. He had one Jaffa stand by each prisoner and simply hold his head so he could do nothing but stare at his counterpart chained to the other pillar. Even as Jaffa after Jaffa knelt down and took them into their hot, alien mouths, Daniel and Jack stared at each other, eyes burning across the intervening space, the memory of the night before shining brilliantly in their minds.

~*~

It was to be expected. The Jaffa were turning Daniel and Jack in their chains, strapping them to face the pillar, their legs spread and manacled in place. Their heads felt like they were stuffed full of cotton, their temples throbbed with the headache of Jaffa hands squeezing their skulls, and their dicks were sore from a dozen mouths. The sound of chain mail armor and plating being removed was loud in the courtyard, and Daniel knew it would be just a matter of minutes before the First Prime began his fruit harvest.

That’s when the cavalry arrived, all of SG-2, SG-3, Teal’c and Sam. It was impressive, or would have been if Jack and Daniel hadn’t been stoned out of their minds. Between craving cheese popcorn and Smirnoff, Jack had the vague, yet potent, thought that it was a good thing they could leave now, before they needed to use the sarcophagus again.

Jack was quite sure he heard Daniel whisper, “Finally,” as the Jaffa were drawn away from them and engaged in battle. Teal’c was suddenly next to Daniel and yanking the chains out of the pillar with sheer, brute force, his face more rock-like than Jack had ever seen it. Then he was propping Daniel up against the pillar next to Jack while he yanked at Jack’s chains.

“Thanks, T,” Jack said, and his voice was hoarse and smoky. “Got any clothes on ya? My ass is hanging out, here.”

“Nice ass,” Daniel whispered for Jack’s ears alone, hands cupped over his tenderized groin, and leaned his head back against the column, completely oblivious, or simply uncaring of the carnage going on around them. Every once in a while, he made a snuffling sound, like he was trying to repress laughter.

It looked like every Jaffa Bast had was coming out to play with the SG teams. Bast’s First Prime had literally been caught with his pants down, and was scrambling to gain some sort of upper hand in the situation. Bellowing directions at his Jaffa, he had a staff weapon in one hand and … well, Jack smirked, his staff weapon in the other, and was looking nothing like imposing. No wonder Daniel was laughing.

The SG teams were all business, though. There was Ferretti going hog-wild with his P-90, the marines were clearly in their element, and Sam was smacking C4 onto columns with an almost balletic grace. While Teal’c yanked some linen draperies off a nearby divan and wrapped them around Daniel, Jack sidled off to yank a tablecloth from a table – and the flowers are still standing! – and tied it around him like a toga. Then he slithered onto the edges of the fight, snatched up a staff weapon that had fallen closest to him, and charged it up, looking for a clear shot. He might be stoned, but he wasn’t stupid – he’d have to be very careful with his aim so as not to hit anyone on Team Good Guys. Explaining to Hammond how he aerated Ferretti while high on kitty hashish was nowhere on his Top Ten List of Fun Things To Do.

Jack heard singing. At first, he thought it was just a ringing in his ears, but the sound slowly resolved into you are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy, when skies are grey. Turning, wide-eyed, he saw Daniel, pushing Teal’c away from him, staggeringly loopy, and stooping to grab up a staff weapon for himself. “Where’s that scrofulous hag?” Daniel shouted over the sounds of battle, smiling beatifically. “I’m gonna declaw that bitch!”

“Teal’c!” Jack roared, gesticulating wildly at Daniel. “Would you do something about that, please?”

Teal’c was already lunging for Daniel, though, clamping one of his enormous hands around Daniel's bicep. “DanielJackson, you must come with me.”

“No!” Daniel yelled, yanking his arm out of Teal’c’s grasp. “That revolting whore dared to wear the pschent, and I’m going to knock it right off her pointy little head!” He whirled, all linen and glassy eyes, the staff weapon charged and ready in his hands, searching for the tiny figure of Bast.

The reverberated voice could clearly be heard behind them, even with men dying and groaning and weapons firing behind them. “I am here, my pretty Tau’ri,” said Bast, her eyes glowing and her ribbon device raised and ready.

And then it was a jumble of images and sounds.

“Sir! Behind you!”

The sound of another staff weapon charging.

“Shol’va!”

A ribbon device extruding waves of power.

Jack’s body slamming into a pillar.

“Jack!”

Another staff weapon charging.

And then there was just Sam, a staff weapon in her hands, and a blazing, smoking hole where Bast’s breasts used to be. The goddess’s eyes flared one more time, then the lifeless body keeled over like a felled tree.

“No!” Daniel shrieked, throwing his own staff weapon at Sam, who hopped to avoid the skittering length of metal. “I wanted to kill her,” Daniel grated, his eyes smoky with drugs.

Jack sat up slowly, muzzily chagrined that his time on Planet Kitty Litter was ending just as it had begun, with him smacking into another column. “Daniel,” he said woozily, checking his head to make sure there wasn’t any blood. “Daniel,” he said again, and things began to shift and jive. The combination of whapping into the pillar and the people-nip was doing some seriously nauseating things to him. “Let’s go home, Daniel,” he whispered, and felt his friend – his lover, oh, boy, were they going to have a talk when they got home – assist with hands in the armpits.

Then they were shuffling out of that vile courtyard, surrounded and supported by the SG teams, they were transported in the rings to the gate, and from a distance, there was the muffled sound of C4 detonating. Bast’s palace blew apart in a cloud of sand and stone that could be seen for miles.

~*~

He knew it was Jack at the door from the first sharp rap against wood. They hadn’t had a chance to talk in the past forty-eight hours, what with their medical checks, the showering while trying not to scrub off every inch of violated skin, and the debriefing. After listening carefully and with his best reading-between-the-lines expression for a couple of hours, Hammond had granted them a week’s downtime to get their heads right and set up appointments with a therapist. For once, Jack and Daniel didn’t argue, and made appointments for single and paired sessions. Their bodies might be healing nicely – they’d just been sore, with no bleeding or bruising – but their minds were going to need a little more time. And it also remained to be seen if there was going to be any residual addiction from the sarcophagus. It was hoped by all that there wouldn’t be, as usage had been limited and they’d been .. well, dead, the theory being that the threat of addiction and personality change were less if the body was deceased before being placed in the casket.

So when Jack knocked on the door, Daniel knew the hour had come ‘round at last to have their discussion about what happened on Planet Kitty Litter, as Jack insisted on calling it. Daniel’d been grateful for the lag time, though. He'd needed space to figure out his head and his heart without the adrenaline rush of torture and rape to distract him. He’d pretty much figured out what he wanted and where he wanted to go with all this by the time Jack showed up on his doorstep.

It looked like Jack had done some thinking, too. He was dressed in his usual comfy jeans, but he also wore a sharp black shirt that was a pleasing contrast to his silvering hair. His dark eyes, though, were pained and confused as he requested entrance.

“Of course,” Daniel murmured, and stepped aside, Jack brushing past him with no bodily contact. So it was going to be like that, was it? “Beer?” he asked as he followed Jack into his living room.

Jack shook his head and merely said, “Water would be fine.” So Daniel brought them back two enormous glasses of icy water, one of which Jack cradled in his hands like a precious gem. “Can’t seem to get enough water,” Jack said softly, sipping slowly, luxuriously, at his glass. “After all that sand … “

“I know,” Daniel replied, sitting on the opposite end of the couch. “I feel sort of the same way. I feel like I’m always in the sun. I keep looking for a tree or something to stand under.”

“Which is stupid,” Jack continued, almost as if Daniel hadn’t spoken. “It’s not like she staked us out in the desert and left us to rot.”

“Didn’t she?” Daniel asked rhetorically, and took a mighty gulp of his water.

Jack just shrugged and stared at the Senet game on the coffee table. “Do you ever play that?” he asked, gesturing at the ivory box.

“When Teal’c’s over,” Daniel said.

And they were silent again for a while, long enough for Daniel to take their glasses, refill them, and bring them back, along with a large pitcher of ice-filled water.

“So,” Daniel said finally, putting his glass down. “Let’s cut to the chase, shall we?” 

Jack looked up, surprised. “Daniel – “ he started, but Daniel held up a finger.

“No, Jack, I’m going to speak first,” Daniel said, and cleared his throat nervously. “It wasn’t a mistake. I’ll tell you that right off the bat. I don’t regret what we did.” Jack’s eyes were big. “And I don’t blame you, so you can stop torturing yourself with guilt that you took advantage of me, or something equally idiotic.” Jack’s eyes got even bigger, if that were possible. “In fact, I’m glad we did it. It brought a lot of things to the fore that I think we’ve both been dancing around, and didn’t even realize it.”

“But – “ Jack tried, and Daniel raised that finger again.

“No, Jack, I’m not done.” Daniel took a deep breath and sipped from his water again, turning the glass slowly in his hands, tracing patterns in the condensation. “I could almost thank Bast for that little silver lining to our imprisonment. She made us face something that’s been going on for a long time.” Daniel looked up and gave Jack a rueful smile. “But I won’t thank her. I’d like to think we would’ve gotten there on our own, eventually. The thing of it is, Jack … “ Daniel took another deep breath, holding it, then letting it out explosively. “I feel … a lot. For you. You’re … “ Daniel rolled his eyes self-deprecatingly. “God, why is this so hard?”

“Cuz we’re guys?” Jack asked, almost smiling, then the ghost of a smile was gone in an instant. “Daniel, I agree with you.”

There was dead silence as Daniel stared at him. “What?” he asked finally.

“I agree with you,” Jack repeated, making patterns on his own glass and not meeting Daniel’s eyes.

“Oh,” was all Daniel could say, and Jack grinned, the first pain-free smile since they’d landed on Planet Kitty Litter.

“Oh? All I get is an ‘oh’?” Jack asked teasingly, looking up and catching Daniel’s gaze. “I agree with you that this has been coming for a long time, and all you have for me is a measly ‘oh’??”

The smile that crept slowly over Daniel’s face was brilliant. “You get an ‘oh’ and a ‘then where do we go from here?’” Daniel answered.

Jack sobered quickly. “I know where I’d like it to go,” Jack said slowly, and he went back to his inspection of his water glass. “But I don’t know what you want.”

“I want you,” Daniel said simply. “You’re already in my life. And you’ve been in my heart longer than I ever realized. So I want you in my bed. Permanently. Well, not permanently, but often, you know, we still have to go to work and – “

“Daniel. Babbling,” Jack said, and Daniel shut up. “I want that, too,” Jack said quietly after a moment, and looked up at Daniel, his brown eyes soft. “But it’s going to mean discretion and subterfuge.”

Daniel’s face saddened. “I know. I hate doing that to Sam and Teal’c, but your career – “

Jack shook his head. “No, not my career. I’m not worried about that, not really. I figure, if someone found out and tried to put me in prison, the President would be more than happy to send me on my way with an honorable discharge and my pension. I mean, gimme a break, we’ve saved the planet too many times for them not to give us keys to the White House, if we wanted them. No, it’s the SGC, it’s fighting the good fight. I’m not ready to give up, not yet, there’s too much we may still be able to accomplish, both of us. We can’t walk away from that, not yet. So the question is, Daniel … can you be comfortable with that? With the lying, with the deception, with the not being honest about who or what we are?”

Daniel stared at him for a long moment, turning Jack’s words over in his mind, thinking about his teammates, about General Hammond, and about how they’d be lying not only to them, but to their alien allies, allies who probably didn’t give a Replicator what side of the sheets the two men slept or with how many people or with what gender. Pondering, Daniel stood, squeezed Jack’s shoulder, and went into the kitchen.

He put a kettle of water on to boil for tea and got a cup ready, a teabag draping its stringed tag over the side. Breathing deeply, Daniel held onto the counter, his head bowed, his knees locked with the strength of conviction. He loved Jack. That time on Bast’s planet, where everything got blown away by the horror and the pain and sheer strange, surreal nature of it all, that had done nothing but make things simple. So they’d lie. They’d lied about lots of things, and really, he wasn't worried about Teal’c, Sam, Hammond or Janet. They’d all figure it out, they’d all know why he and Jack hadn’t said anything, and they wouldn’t care, as long as he and Jack were happy. They were the only people to whom he really cared about lying. And at the heart of it all, no pun intended, it was what he and Jack were to each other. Honest. Trusted. Loved. So, no. Lying was not a problem. There’d be no deception.

Turning, his mind clear and calm, he left the kitchen and strode to the living room. Silently, he pulled Jack off the couch and into his arms, heavy and warm and solid. Their lips met, caressed, found tiny points of pressure that sparkled like Roman Candles on the Fourth of July. Jack’s hand in his, Daniel led the way to the bedroom, where they stripped slowly, thoughtfully, hands touching every tingling pore and joint, lips following hands. Where there had been bruises, wounds, life-defeating gouges, there were now kisses and wet strokes with tongues. Where hands had clutched around throats there was now the gentle, feather-touch of knuckles and fingertips. Where there had been violence and power, there was now healing and surrender. It was quiet. It was needed. It was something that no one else could ever understand and that was truly theirs.

Women must feel this, Daniel thought hazily, as Jack slid inside him, slowly, creeping, like a tide coming in, inexorable, powerful. Spread open, vulnerable, both controlled and controlling, filled from the inside, no longer a single entity, but two, one held in the other in a cradle of flesh that throbbed and pulsed. Tremors wracked them both as hands clutched shoulders, teeth bit on tender ligaments, tongues gentled and soothed the bite marks, flesh slapping quietly, like banners in the wind.

Stroking deep within Daniel, those pretty legs wrapped around his waist, Daniel’s cheeks flushed and his lips bite-swollen, and as the kettle water shrieked and steamed away in the kitchen, Jack felt the dry taste of the desert slip away from him, leaving cool water and lotus flowers behind. 

Daniel, his hands clenching on Jack’s lean biceps and in his silvery hair, felt shade and solace where once there had been only the crippling heat of the sun. 

 

_“As if I'd slept a thousand years underwater I wake into a new season. I am the blue lotus rising. I am the cup of dreams and memory opening--I, the thousand-petaled flower. At dawn the sun rises naked and new as a babe; I open myself and am entered by light. This is the joy, the slow awakening into fire as one by one the petals open, as the fingers that held tight the secret unfurl. I let go of the past and release the fragrance of flowers._

_I open and light descends, fills me and passes through, each thin blue petal reflected perfectly in clear water. I am that lotus filled with light reflected in the world. I float content within myself, one flower with a thousand petals, one life lived a thousand years without haste, one universe sparking a thousand stars, one god alive in a thousand people._

_If you stood on a summer's morning on the bank under a brilliant sky, you would see the thousand petals and say that together they make the lotus. But if you lived in its heart, invisible from without, you might see how the ecstasy at its fragrant core gives rise to its thousand petals. What is beautiful is always that which is itself in essence, a certainty of being. I marvel at myself and the things of earth._

_I float among the days in peace, content. Not part of the world, the world is all the parts of me. I open toward the light and lift myself to the gods on the perfume of prayer. I ask for nothing beyond myself. I own everything I need. I am content in the company of god, a prayer that contains its own answer. I am the lotus. As if from a dream, I wake up laughing. “ ~ “Becoming the Lotus” from the Scroll of Ani, Awakening Osiris: The Egyptian Book of the Dead, Normandi Ellis (Translator)._


End file.
